I had to go into work for a little while on Saturday so, on my way home, I decided to check out a local rural road that I'd always wondered about.
The first couple of miles are paved, but that's ok -- the scenery is beautiful!!
I have to admit that I went around a gate at the end of the paved section -- the first time I've ever done so. Normally I don't do that, but I'd heard from mountain biking friends and coworkers that this section is very lightly-trafficked and I likely wouldn't annoy anyone.
It had rained pretty hard the day before so the trail was perfect: muddy enough to be fun and slippery but the ground wasn't saturated yet so it was easy to maintain control.
Since I was alone and no one knew where I was, I took it pretty cautiously and never even had a pucker moment. Lots of smiles, though!
I was glad I had my knobby Kendas on!
A fun hairpin:
Sadly, another gate appeared and this time, I didn't go around it. I walked a little past the gate and found the road was pretty washed out. There was a mountain bike detour around the washed-out section but it was very narrow and technical -- again, since I was alone, I decided to skip it and instead just turn around.
These would be pretty fun jumps in the dry!
I came upon some mountain bikers when I was almost back to the original gate, but instead of seeming angry to see me, they waved and said "hi". In fact, there was a bicyclist at the first gate who waited to make sure I could get my XT back around it without trouble. We got to chatting and he told me about his R1200GS -- he laughed and said he didn't think that big pig of a bike would make it around the gate...but he wished he could try!
I don't think I'll make it a habit to go around gates, but I was very glad that I didn't seem to make anyone angry that I did it this time. It's important to me to be a "good representative" for our sport.
It was just a couple of miles of dirt, but what fun!
